Products sold to customers are often sent through a series of intermediate points between the original source, such as a manufacturer, and the customers, who may buy the products from a retailer. Products may include food items, pharmaceutical drugs or other products, including products of manufacture. These products may be sold to a customer through a grocery store, a pharmacy, a department store or other type of retailer.
Counterfeit products may enter the supply chain to the customer at any number of different points in the supply chain. For example, a wholesaler may receive counterfeit goods which it passes on to a retailer, or directly to the customer.
Because of the possibility of spoofing, where a counterfeiter copies the packaging of the product, manufacturers often attempt to prevent entry of counterfeit products into the marketplace by protecting the packages. Some approaches that manufacturers have used to make it difficult for counterfeiters include the use of holograms or three dimensional printing on packages. For example, a hologram of a company's logo is placed on a package so a customer buying the product knows that the product is from the company and is not counterfeit. These approaches provide some deterrence; however, counterfeiting has become very sophisticated so that it is has become more difficult for manufacturers to provide product packaging that cannot be replicated by counterfeiters of the product. It is also difficult for receivers of products to know that the supply chain through which the products have traveled is reliable.